Archive for the ‘events’ Category

LVL1 is very proud to be hosting Rob Bishop from the Raspberry Pi foundation for a visit to Louisville on August 9th, at 6 PM!

This month, Rob will be traveling through the US, taking a look at all the cool Raspberry Pi projects people are working on, talking about the Pi and the work of the Pi foundation, and doing live demos. More information about his itinerary is right here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/4312

In case you haven’t heard of the Raspberry Pi before: The Raspberry Pi is a $35 credit-card sized computer module running Linux. With Ethernet and USB outputs, you’ve got a very nice computer in a very small package. People have used the Pi on projects as diverse as home entertainment PCs, Carputers, Robots, UAVs, Vending Machines, Access Control Systems, and so much more.

Come on down to LVL1 on August 9th for this completely free event! Bring your Pi and any Pi projects you’ve been working on! Show off all the cool stuff that you’ve done with your Pi, or would like to do! Tons of like-minded folks will be hanging around, fawning over Rob. Don’t have a Raspberry Pi? No problem! We’ll have Pis for sale before, during, and after the event!

Louisville has been selected as one of ten cities to receive a Code for America Fellowship. The Louisville fellows are looking at ways to improve the criminal justice system. This hackathon, however, has a broader goal. In a mere 8 hours, create a smartphone app (or prototype) that uses publicly available data to improve the lives of Louisvillians. There is prize money involved for winners, so start planning now!

I’d like to thank everyone who came out to the LVL1 Make Food Not War Hackathon this past weekend. Without a doubt, this was the most dangerous group activity ever attempted by LVL1!

We had 6 teams participate, with 6 very innovative ways to launch food very long distances. Team Aaron built a device to remotely launch shot glasses into half-filled pint glasses, resulting in the most entertaining Irish Car Bomb you’re ever likely to consume. The device worked amazingly well, and was incredibly easy to use. Props to Aaron for one of the most polished projects! Tuesday night, we used it to lob burning alcohol through the air, for kicks.

Team Sprinkles, consisting of three people from the local science center (and our own Ben Hibben) was probably the most well-prepared team. They had plans to build an advanced device capable of mixing flavored ice cream on-the-fly, and freezing it with liquid nitrogen. The ice cream would then be launched from an automatic ballista. Unfortunately, the ice cream mixing robot didn’t quite get finished, and the automated portion of the ballista broke during the demonstration, but they still hurled ice cream over 100 feet, and tossed the shaft for their projectile on the neighbor’s roof (4 stories!) And the ice cream was delicious!

Team Muff Cannon (the only all-woman team) built a fantastic muffin cannon. Powered by exploding ether, their pink hello-kitty adorned cannon managed to launch a muffin over 150 feet, and it remained intact! They also experimented with a very entertaining waffle flinger, which threw waffled onto parked cars, and the roof of a nearby building.

The Bomb Squad started the evening with a bang, burning up teflon wire and bulging a fully-charged lithium-ion battery in an attempt to bake a cupcake. Their plans changed from flying a helicopter ez-bake-oven, to integrating the cupcake into a miniature Up! house. Unfortunately, at launch time they weren’t able to achieve neutral buoyancy without cutting off some critical components. As soon as they did, the wind carried their (tethered!) house straight into the power lines! A few well-placed tugs, and the cupcake came back down, but not without some worry among the crowd.

Team Pat created a powerful martini shooter. Although it only took him 2 hours to put it together, it managed to fling food the furthest, reaching over 300 feet, at high velocity. In fact, the aluminum bottle he used to store his libation was destroyed on impact, and very little martini was left! He also created a smaller olive shooter, which served to atomize the olives, more than shoot them. Still, very impressive, from both a danger and a distance perspective!

Finally, the idea that spawned the hackathon so many months ago: The taco cannon. Long a dream of many LVL1ers, it became a reality this weekend. A taco shell is loaded into a carrier at the muzzle, pulled back by a powerful magnet, and a screw-driven hopper dumps taco ingredients into the shell. The ingredient-door is sealed, and the weapon is fired, propelled by the same mechanism (but bigger!) as the Muff Cannon. Unfortunately, the blast door wasn’t as secure as it should have been, so upon ignition, vaporized taco ingredients showered the crowd! Still, a very tasty weapon, with a lot of future potential. Next year, guys?

We had two teams tie for first place: Team Sprinkles and Team Aaron. Well done to both of you! They split the first and second place trophies, cutting them in half and gluing them back together!

Trailing them (but only barely!) was Team Muff Cannon, taking home the third place plaque.

Once again, thanks to everyone that participated in this second 24 hour hackathon. We’ve seen great success with the past two hackathons, and we hope to continue the tradition. Start thinking about next years hacks, along with ideas for future hackathons! What could be better than combing sleep deprivation with power tools and explosives?

Come on down to the space Saturday, September 8th at 8pm and we’ll be talking about gaming, PC style mostly. Bring your rig if you got one, as we will be doing a LAN party with the game Team Fortress 2, which is now free for download. Please install it before you show up as it will take forever to download at the space. GO to Steampowered.com to download it. Never played it before? No problem, come on down, we will try to have a few extra consoles available. Click more to see what all we’ll be doing.(more…)